Godstorm: The Fall of Darnthor

Economy

Wealth and Goods

Darnthor is a relatively poor world, on the whole much like a modern third world nation. Not every formal nation has an education system for even the poorest youth. For the most part, medical knowledge is reasonably advanced and closely comparable to our modern times, with magic, alchemy, and herbology standing in for our modern medicines. Poverty is common and absolute poverty is commoner still. However, Darnthor is a world based in not in magic, but in science of a sort, and has a decidedly unique socio-economic climate. As such, a number of differences have arisen:

Mass-produced goods are starting to make an appearance on Darnthor thanks to the advent of steam powered machines, Where they are available (generally larger towns and cities) the goods are usually cheaper, but not as well made, as crafted goods.

In places where manufactured goods are available the crafted goods will be slightly more expensive but better made, and typically made to the specifications of the buyer. Many craftsmen will have a small stock of their best goods for display but never for sale as each good is made to order.

In general, people tend to live in small villages, towns or cities as opposed to the countryside, the obvious exception to this being farmers and hunters. This is different from our world in that during medieval times people tended to avoid cities and towns, living in smaller villages or in isolation. The reason for this difference is simple: survival. People learned that by living in the cities they had a better chance of surviving the harsh winters. The various guilds, now making a larger sum due to the increase in populace, has a vested interest in keeping this are they are.

Coins and Currency

Every nation and city-state has at one point in time tried to have it’s currency established as the primary currency for the entire world. And each time it was thwarted by another nation or city-state trying to do the same thing. Currently most currency is represented by fiat coins, typically made from cheap materials such as nickel, copper, and occasionally iron. Nations that mint their own coinage typically require gods and services purchased within their borders to be paid using their currency, though most cities with ports or sit on a frequented trade route will have exchange house for a variety of currencies. Despite the multitude of variations most exchange rates are 1:1 and are all typically referred to as ‘gold’, ‘silver’ or the like as those terms are hold overs from the past.

Merchants and Services

Not every town,village or hamlet will have a tavern or inn as the populace in the area, and or it’s place in the world simply doesn’t support or demand that one exist. A town that rarely gets visitors and whose citizenry all have homes has no need of an inn, or if there were to be one opened it likely wouldn’t last for long.

To help facilitate this I’ve borrowed a concept from another campaign called Support Value. In short, each type of business is given a Support Value (SV). This is the number of people it takes to support a single business of that sort. For instance, the SV for shoemakers (by far the most common trade in towns) is 150. This means that there will be one shoemaker for every 150 people in an area. These numbers can vary by up to 60% in either direction, based on location type, but provide a useful baseline. A port, for instance, will have more fishmongers than the table indicates. Cities and Metropolis’ will also almost always have more of every profession than the table would indicate.

To find the number of, say, inns in a city, divide the population of the city by the SV value for inns (2,000). For a village of 400 people, this reveals only 20% of an inn! This means that there is a 20% chance of there being one at all. And even if there is one, it will be smaller and less impressive than an urban inn. The SV for taverns is 400, so there will be a single tavern. A limited list of SV’s are in the table below, the DM has a more comprehensive list.